Gunpowder God (3 page)
Authors: John F. Carr
“Truly, Your Majesty. Maybe worse. These men have been fighting for most of two winters and they are worn through and through. Several of your Princes are grumbling and I suspect they too would desert if there were anywhere to go.”
For the first time, Lysandros began to seriously entertain the thought that he might never see his wife nor Harphax City again. “How many of them can we buy off with the loot we took from Nythros?”
Demnos paused to light his pipe. “Prince Mylestros of Balkron is greedy enough that he will follow you to the Caverns of the Dead for a share of the spoils, as will Prince Karmanes of Hyphax. Prince Thukyblos of Dazour owes his crown to Styphon’s House and will not be a problem.”
“Good. No one is going to desert until we reach Hos-Harphax or leave the Rathoni far behind.”
NE
I
E
x-Paratime Police Chief Tortha Karf entered the Chief’s office and looked around in surprise. Hadron Dalla, the new Chief, had redecorated Verkan Vall’s former office to the point where he hardly recognized the place. Gone was the Chief’s horseshoe desk—a signature piece of furniture that had survived the reign of four chiefs—along with Verkan’s curio cabinets and all his assorted weaponry and framed paintings. Dalla had replaced the old desk with some modern monstrosity that was all plastiglass and mirrors. The walls were covered with living pictures, wall screens and shimmering metallic hangings from Second Level Triplanetary while the old couch had been replaced with a divan from Imperial Macedonia, fit for an Empress.
The biggest surprise, however, was Dalla herself; she looked harried and her usual impeccable coif was in disarray, strands of hair shooting out of her upswept hairdo. Her Paratime Police greens looked as if she’d slept in them. She was crouched around her reading-screen as if it was a precious tablet someone was about to hijack.
“Chief Hadron, I got your message ball. What’s going on?”
Dalla shook her head as if waking from a deep sleep. “Sorry, Tortha. I’ve been swamped for the last five ten-days. You just can’t believe…well, maybe you can.”
Tortha laughed. “I’ve been through my share of crises.”
“I’m sure you have,” she said with a tone of reproach. “But not like this! We’ve got riots going on in Old Town Dhergabar and two tower bombings in the last ten-day. The Dhergabar Metropolitan Police Chief wants to borrow ten thousand of our field agents to help patrol the City and find the miscreants. The Prole Liberation Movement is demanding representation on the Executive Council, or else.”
“Back when I was Chief,” Tortha said, “we used to get the same kind of ultimatums from the Prole Protection League. The PPL was making those kinds of demands even before ex-Chief Tharg was on the job. Nothing new there.”
“You’re wrong. Things have changed. The Prole Liberation Movement is the militant arm of the Prole Protection League. They weren’t kidnapping citizens and bombing towers when you were in office.”
Tortha drew back in concern. “I apologize, things do sound as if they’ve gone to Niflheim in a handbasket. What’s Metro doing about it?”
“Metropolitan Police Chief Vothan Raldor believes that someone the proles call The Leader is behind all this.”
“Are you telling me this is a religious issue?” Tortha asked. “Because if you are, we have a big problem.” The worst wars in First Level history occurred during the Mystic Rebellions. To say nothing of the Styphon’s House donnybrook on Kalvan’s Time-Line.
“No, The Leader’s just the ‘man’ who’s supposed to lead them into citizenship and give them all longevity treatments. I haven’t heard of any religious rites connected to his demands. No one knows who he is or what he represents. He’s got the proles all lathered up and rioting in Old Town.”
It would be hard to riot elsewhere, thought Tortha, as the rest of Dhergabar consisted of anti-gravity spires and towers stretching toward the sky. Still, the proles outnumbered citizens, many of whom were working or vacationing outtime, several times over. If they continued to attack the towers things could get messy.
“Have you thought of calling in the Army Strike Teams?”
“That’s why we asked for your advice, Tortha. Things have been in a real precarious place with the Executive Council ever since Vall left office. The last Crisis of Confidence vote almost brought down Management. It wouldn’t take much for the Opposition Party to wrest control of the Council away.”
Then calling in the Army
, Tortha decided,
would be a complete disaster. The Opposition Party would use it to show that Management has lost control over the capital. I know they’re somehow behind this fracas, but proving it is almost impossible.
The Opposition Party included almost as many scoundrels and scallywags as that Styphon’s House racket on Aryan-Transpacific. He couldn’t remember the last time things on Home Time Line had been so out of whack.
What’s going on in Dhergabar, other than politics as usual?
It hadn’t been that long since he’d retired, only a few years, and things had been going fine when he’d resigned. Verkan hadn’t caused this mess, he hadn’t been Chief long enough. No, this was a large-scale operation put together behind the scenes over decades. Someone had to be behind it, but whom? Dralm-damned if he could come up with anyone or a group that powerful and sinister. Opposition Party contained too many hacks and has-beens; they certainly weren’t pulling the strings…dancing to them maybe, but not yanking them.
“Chief Vothan’s a good man. Give the Metro Police whatever manpower he asks for and put some of our top Investigators to work and find out who or what’s behind all this PLM nonsense. This mess stinks all the way up to Mars.”
“I’ll do that,” Dalla replied. “Any other ideas?”
Tortha took a long drag on his pipe, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. Fortunately, lung cancer and emphysema had been conquered eons ago by First Level medicine, so smoking was a harmless pastime and one he could enjoy without any unproductive emotional and physical consequences.
“I think it’s time to call an emergency meeting of the Paratime Commission. I’ll give Dalgroth Sorn a call and have him set it up. It’s time we did something about this prole problem once and for all.”
“Thanks, Tortha. I really miss Vall; he’d know what to do.”
Tortha shrugged. “Maybe.” He was still disappointed in Verkan Vall, even though he was the one who pushed him into becoming Paratime Police Chief.
Admit it, old man, he fought you all the way. It’s time you shouldered some of the blame.
The boy had talent and good instincts, but he wasn’t willing to wear the harness. Too bad. It looked like Home Time Line needed all the help it could get.
“How’s Vall been doing since I left?” she asked.
Tortha took out his pipe and began to recharge it. “Well enough,” he said, nodding. “Vall’s busy now doing all the usual kingly stuff, stabilizing the Greffan economy, rebuilding war-damaged buildings and businesses and forming his own army. Dalla, he was forced into the position by Kalvan, almost the same way I got Vall to take my chair. Still, regardless of whose fault it is, once word hits First Level, the newsies will say he’s gone native.”
“I don’t care about any of that. Is Vall in any danger from King Theovacar? I know Theovacar won’t rest until he’s back in Greffa and on the Iron Throne.”
Tortha shrugged. “Unfortunately for Kalvan and Verkan, King Theovacar was in Ragyath with the remnants of his army when Kalvan took Greffa City. It would have been a real coup to have taken Theovacar prisoner—even better if he’d been killed during the siege. One of our undercover agents says that Theovacar is inconsolable over the loss of his capital and will do whatever it takes to win it back.
“But I wouldn’t worry overly much about Verkan. Kalvan left him with three thousand Hostigi regulars and Vall’s been busy building his own little army. Vall’s smart enough not to commit any obvious Para-time Contamination, but he’s forgotten more military strategy and tactics than all of Theovacar’s commanders combined. Plus, he’s got Kalvan to back him up. If anyone’s way in over his head, it’s King Theovacar. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
In the quiet of his private audience chamber, Kalvan was hunkered down with a full pipe and a goblet of wine. It was late at night and Rylla was staying in the nursery with baby Ptosphes who had a bad cough—maybe the croup. His sister Demia had been sick with it more than a few times. The rest of the old castle was quiet as most of his subjects, like most pre-industrial peoples, were accustomed to getting up at dawn and going off to bed at nightfall. Unless he was recovering from a battle or spent the day on horseback, Kalvan liked to stay up and enjoy the late night peace and privacy—there was so damn little of it during daylight hours.
He was writing down the events of the last few months in his private journal, trying to make sense of all the disasters that had befallen him and his subjects since the Grand Host had invaded Hos-Hostigos and run them out of Hostigos Town. Rylla had finally gotten over blaming him for the death of her father and the loss of her home and
far
too many of their subjects. Still, Kalvan knew there must have been something he could have done that would have turned the tide.
There was a hesitant knock at the door.
“Who is it?” he snapped. Kalvan cherished his alone time and didn’t like it when it was interrupted by more business.
“Me, sire,” Cleon said.
“What now…?”
“It’s Prince Sarrask, Your Majesty. He just arrived from Ragyath Town and begs your indulgence.”
What does Sarrask want?
he asked himself. Sarrask was overbearing and hard to take at the best of times.
He should know better than to disturb me at night. It Dralm-damned better be an emergency, like a Grefftscharri fleet coming into Thagnor Harbor or King Theovacar’s army knocking on my doorstep!
“Tell him to come in,” he ordered.
Prince Sarrask slipped into the chamber like a naughty schoolboy, which was saying something since he weighed well over two-hundred pounds, or seventy ingots using here-and-now measurements. He was also carrying a small cask of Ermut’s Best, the local brandy.